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L: How long have you known me? D: I have known you for four years. L: When did you meet me? D: I met you in 2022. L: You met me 4 years ago. D: That’s right.  I have known you since 2022.

 We used for, since and ago in our conversation. We use each of these prepositions to talk about time, but they are used in different ways. Each preposition looks at time from a different perspective. We use for to talk about a total length or duration of time. We use “for” to talk about a specific amount of time or an estimate. “ I have known you for 4 years.” “I have known you for a few years.” 

Notice that in our sentence we used the present perfect tense (I have known). The “perfect tenses” use a form of the verb “to have” + the past participle of the main verb. All verbs have three forms: present, past and past participle. "to know": know/knew/known. I have known you for the period of time of 4 years and I still know you. We use the present perfect form for an action that has lasted a period of time and continues to the present.

If we’re talking about an action that lasted a period of time in the past and did not continue to the present, we use the simple past.  “I waited (simple past) in the dentist’s office for 2 hours."  I waited. I am not waiting now. We use “for” + a length of time  to answer “for how long?” questions.

Now “since”. I said “I have known you since 2022 – a specific year. We use “since” when we are talking about time from  a  starting time in the past. A specific day, time of the day, time of the year, period of time in the past, 

Again, we used the present perfect tense “have known” with since because the action started in the past and is continuing to the present. Some other examples of using “since”: “We have been here since 3:00 this afternoon." “My parents have lived in Tacoma since last spring.”  Summary: We use since to answer “since when?“ questions. When did this period of time begin? since I was a child; since 7:00 o’clock.

 Finally let’s talk about ago: In our conversation you said you met me 4 years ago. You said we met 4 years ago. We use ago to talk about a length of time counting back from the present. When, counting back from the present, did an action happen?  “You met me 4 years ago.” We used the simple past: met is the irregular past of "meet".  We use simple past with ago because the action started and ended in the past. We use ago to answer "Counting back from the present, when did an action happen?”

We use for, since and ago to talk about time in different ways. For to talk about the length of a period of time in total: for three days; for an hour. Since to talk about a period of time that we count from a starting point in the past: since when in the past?”: since 2015; since I was a child: since last night. Ago – to talk about a period of time measuring backward from the present: 1 hour ago; 3 years ago; a long time ago.  Listen for these three prepositions: 

D: Have you ever been to Portland? L: Yes, I went to Portland for 2 weeks about 6 years ago. Have you ever been there? D: Yes, I have a friend who lives in Portland. I haven’t seen her since 2021. L: You haven’t seen her since 2021. Wow! That’s 5 years ago!  You need to visit her! D: I agree!

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